The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 233

_Ellisland, 17th January, 1791._

I am not gone to Elysium, most n.o.ble colonel, but am still here in this sublunary world, serving my G.o.d, by propagating his image, and honouring my king by begetting him loyal subjects.

Many happy returns of the season await my friend. May the thorns of care never beset his path! May peace be an inmate of his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul! May the blood-hounds of misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling! May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard! "Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee!!!"

As a further proof that I am still in the land of existence, I send you a poem, the latest I have composed. I have a particular reason for wis.h.i.+ng you only to show it to select friends, should you think it worthy a friend's perusal; but if, at your first leisure hour, you will favour me with your opinion of, and strictures on the performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear Sir, your deeply indebted humble servant,

R. B.

CCIV.

TO MR. PETER HILL.

[The poet's eloquent apostrophe to poverty has no little feeling in it: he beheld the money which his poems brought melt silently away, and he looked to the future with more fear than hope.]

_Ellisland, 17th January, 1791._

Take these two guineas, and place them over against that d--mned account of yours! which has gagged my mouth these five or six months!

I can as little write good things as apologies to the man I owe money to. O the supreme curse of making three guineas do the business of five! Not all the labours of Hercules; not all the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such an infernal task!! Poverty! thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of h.e.l.l: where shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits? Oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown h.o.a.ry in the practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, implores a little--little aid to support his existence, from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a cloud; and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in bitterness of soul, under the contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth.

Oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fas.h.i.+onable and polite, must see in suffering silence, his remark neglected, and his person despised, while shallow greatness in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with countenance and applause. Nor is it only the family of worth that have reason to complain of thee: the children of folly and vice, though in common with thee the offspring of evil, smart equally under thy rod.

Owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies as usual bring him to want; and when his unprincipled necessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. _His_ early follies and extravagance, are spirit and fire; _his_ consequent wants are the embarra.s.sments of an honest fellow; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commission to plunder distant provinces, or ma.s.sacre peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder; lives wicked and respected, and dies a scoundrel and a lord.--Nay, worst of all, alas for helpless woman! the needy prost.i.tute, who has s.h.i.+vered at the corner of the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual prost.i.tution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the chariot wheels of the coroneted RIP, hurrying on to the guilty a.s.signation; she who without the same necessities to plead, riots nightly in the same guilty trade.

Well! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the mind what phlebotomy is to the body: the vital sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations.

R. B.

CCV.

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.

[To Alexander Cunningham the poet generally communicated his favourite compositions.]

_Ellisland, 23d January, 1791._

Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend! As many of the good things of this life, as is consistent with the usual mixture of good and evil in the cup of being!

I have just finished a poem (Tam o' Shanter) which you will receive enclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales.

I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get, no farther than the following fragment, on which please give me your strictures. In all kinds of poetic composition, I set great store by your opinion; but in sentimental verses, in the poetry of the heart, no Roman Catholic ever set more value on the infallibility of the Holy Father than I do on yours.

I mean the introductory couplets as text verses.

ELEGY

ON THE LATE MISS BURNET, OF MONBODDO.

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet lovely from her native skies; Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow, As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.

Let me hear from you soon.

Adieu!

R. B.

CCVI.

TO A.F. TYTLER, ESQ.

["I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhouselee, "tasted a higher enjoyment from any work of genius than I received from Tam o'

Shanter."]

_Ellisland, February, 1791._

SIR,

Nothing less than the unfortunate accident I have met with, could have prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your letter. His own favourite poem, and that an essay in the walk of the muses entirely new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were on the most anxious alarm for his success in the attempt; to have that poem so much applauded by one of the first judges, was the most delicious vibration that ever thrilled along the heart-strings of a poor poet.

However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary state, thought proper to check my exultation by a very serious misfortune. A day or two after I received your letter, my horse came down with me and broke my right arm. As this is the first service my arm has done me since its disaster, I find myself unable to do more than just in general terms thank you for this additional instance of your patronage and friends.h.i.+p. As to the faults you detected in the piece, they are truly there: one of them, the hit at the lawyer and priest, I shall cut out; as to the falling off in the catastrophe, for the reason you justly adduce, it cannot easily be remedied. Your approbation, Sir, has given me such additional spirits to persevere in this species of poetic composition, that I am already revolving two or three stories in my fancy. If I can bring these floating ideas to bear any kind of embodied form, it will give me additional opportunity of a.s.suring you how much I have the honour to be, &c.

R. B.

CCVII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.